New Orleans

A friend from British Columbia made the point on my Facebook wall over the weekend and Gail Collins, the New York Times columnist, said the same thing in today’s paper about gun control.  Gun should not be popping out of pockets at public events in Arizona because of a wrongheaded laissez faire carryall policy.  Arizona does not have the political ability to change that, which means Congress needs to do so.

Same thing with automatic weapons.  Collins normally spices her column with humor but today she was deadly serious.  If automatic weapons had been banned, Congresswoman Giffords would have still been shot and perhaps one other, but we would not be dealing with 6 dead and another dozen wounded from a Glock 9mm and reading about a 9-year old girl born on 9/11 and now dead, the heroism of a husband dying as if in a warzone while covering his wife’s body with his own, and a woman who heroically helped wrestle away the 2^nd 30-shot gun clip, allowing for the shooter’s capture.  Arizona can’t stop this anymore than Mississippi would integrate itself.  They need help.

The Pima County Sheriff spoke the truth about Arizona being ground zero for haters, baiters, and wildness now, and the reasons matter, but they are not material, especially when we still have Sheriff Joe and his anti-immigrant mischief in Maricopa County up the road, because the situation cries for intervention.

Certainly we need to see a dialing down of the rhetoric from all sides in our political discourse, but even at a whisper hate can grow unabated even in desert soil.  We need start understanding Arizona differently.  This is a cancer on the national soul and the body politic, and as a citizenry and a community, we have intervene and create a different climate.

Now!  Ahora!

San Jose

Wow, has the Arpaio watch become weird and bizarre!

I would have thought it might have gotten better since Arpaio’s deputies are no longer authorized by his buddy, Homeland Security’s Janet Napolitano, to pretend to be federal agents in rousting immigrants and anyone else based on his whim.  But, I might have been wrong.

I looked at a press release he put out the other day which includes the following nugget:

“The most recent arrest was made last night as Sheriff’s human smuggling deputies arrested 12 illegal aliens in the North Valley near Anthem. Eleven of the illegal aliens were booked by Sheriff’s deputies into jail on state felony human smuggling charges.”

What in the blue blazes is a “human smuggling” deputy and how could this be a good thing for anyone in the Phoenix area?  Let’s hope this peculiar turn of phrase means that Sheriff Joe  now has some deputies that know  about human smuggling, though given the way they have handled inmates under their custody in the past and the millions they have lost in lawsuits in this regard, I’m afraid  they are confused frequently between being human smugglers and deputies.

The rest of the press release talked about something called “pro-texting,” as he called it.  Which seems to be an immigrant alert system he claims is at large in his jurisdiction where people are texted cellphone warnings that his human smuggling deputies are in the area, and which would then seem to be a good thing, wouldn’t it?  How else would one deal with such well know, over-the-top and past the bounds of law, and no self-proclaimed body snatchers?

The only other way would be to join the crowd in the warmer air of Phoenix next Saturday on a weirdness smackdown where the forces of good once again try to stop the evil Arpaio body snatchers and their wicked work.

New Orleans

Of course if you really listen to the Telemundo interview on YouTube, which I did thanks to the prompting of a friend, you will find that the Lou-leopard has really not changed his spots all that much.  This must be conversion-lite?  Perhaps one of the best examples occurs when Dobbs is talking about his buddy, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the notorious and infamous jail keeper of Maricopa County.

On Telemundo Dobbs had this weird “defense” of Sheriff Joe having “lost” his 287g Homeland Security money due to his ongoing racial profiling and community terrorism because he was victimized by…yes, you guessed it:  ACORN!  Of course Sheriff Joe still has Homeland Security money from ex-Arizona Governor and now DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, he just doesn’t have quite as much.  And, of course Sheriff Joe lost what bit he lost because he wasn’t really out looking for these immigrant “criminals” that Dobbs still wants to pretend are the vast majority of the 12 million undocumented workers in the USA.  To me it sounds a little bit like Dobbs is simply moving his position a couple of degrees without changing any of his hateration.  Now does he want us to believe his spiel will be he’s a friend of the immigrant, he just hates criminals, so it’s too bad that all immigrants are criminals.  Is this where he’s going?

There’s a good way to clear this up.  There is a huge call for a rally and march in Phoenix on January 16^th to force Arpaio to finally get right.  The demand will once again be for Arpaio to stop the terrorism of Maricopa County communities and his immigrant bashing and baiting.  The demand will also be to cease the abuses of the 287g program and to end the program since Arpaio is the poster boy for its unparalleled and unrestrained abuses.  March with us in Phoenix, Lou!  Stand up or shut up!

In fact I’m going to lobby right now for the organizers of the January 16^th March to formally invite Lou Dobbs to speak to the rally and clarify his position about immigrants.  Standing with immigrants means standing against abuse.

Lou Dobbs, it’s time to man up for immigrants.  You want anyone to believe you?  Meet us in Phoenix and prove you not all talk, but are at least about a little bit of action – and justice for immigrants.

Several months ago in the wake of 5000 marchers in Phoenix and the excitement of the new appointments, I was virtually assuring people that 287g was dead on arrival now.  I was wrong, and I’ll be darned if I understand why, except that I suspect the inside the Beltway part of the immigration reform movement is giving the White House a “wink and nod,” on this matter rather pushing the point that we all have to see something happen NOW, not just a fight for a bill that may or may not happen over the next year.

There is low lying fruit that this movement needs to pick now.  287g and Arpaio have to be terminated and slapped down.  The DREAM act around immigrant education has to be passed this year.  There’s more.  We have to shake the tree though to pick this fruit.

When the White House Summit around immigration rolls out, perhaps there should be some people in a vigil or a picket line around the White House reminding the President and the Secretary that there needs to be action now?  This needs to be part of the debate and the arsenal.

I heard a true story from a friend about a meeting two months ago between Patrick Gaspard, the White House political director, and leaders of the immigration reform movement from LULAC and other groups.  Patrick, who I know well, told a story in that meeting that he said President Obama often tells about a meeting around civil rights between legendary labor and civil rights leader, A. Philip Randolph, and President Roosevelt on the topic of integrating the military.  The President said that he agreed with Randolph.  Randolph said, then let’s make it happen.  Roosevelt said that until there were 100,000 people in the streets outside the White House, there was no way to get it done.

My friend was not sure that anyone heard Patrick.  Knowing him, I think he issued the movement a work order, and now we need to get it done.

This is not just the time for lobbying.  This is the time to turn up the heat and demand results now, not later.